Editorial: U.S. military is not a ‘social experiment’

There is a logical and reasonable solution to the controversy of transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military.

For those not following the president on Twitter, he announced his intentions - via a tweet - to ban transgender individuals from the U.S. military last month.

As is the case with most social agendas these days, this is a needless controversy, albeit one which can be solved rather simply if political correctness is pushed to the side.

Whether a member of the U.S. military is male or female, gay or straight or some combination thereof - who cares? The primary responsibility of the U.S. military is to protect the country. And anything that threatens the capability of our men and women soldiers to protect this nation needs to be discarded.

Here is the solution to the transgender issue in the U.S. military - a solution we have alluded to before and echoed this past week by U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon.

This is what Thornberry, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, had to say during a news conference at Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo: “What I care about is I want people who can fight and meet our standards. If they cannot be deployed to a mountain top in Afghanistan, then they need to find some other way to serve.

“If they can be deployed to a mountain top in Afghanistan, and do their job up to the standards we expect, then that is fine.”

Sounds simple, right? If you are able to meet the lofty standards of being in the U.S. military (and the standards should be high), then you can serve. A person’s sexual orientation, or which gender a person may relate to most on a certain day, are not relevant.

However, things are not always simple when political correctness is thrown into the mix.

Another reason this controversy is unnecessary is that there are roughly 1.3 million active-duty troops, with another 865,000 in reserve (according to New York Times). Thornberry estimates there may be around 5,000 transgender members of the U.S. military. So obviously, the number is small.

Then there is the controversy within the controversy - the possibility some may join the U.S. military to have transgender-related medical procedures, courtesy of American taxpayers. Again, a person’s gender or the gender a person relates to should not be a factor in their ability to fight in a war - so leave the unnecessary medical procedures out of it.

“Part of the concern that has been expressed is you don’t want the military to be a magnet drawing people into the military so that the taxpayers will pay for some of the expensive treatments,” Thornberry said.

“There are a variety of people who have different groups with various conditions and disabilities who have lobbied to change standards. I worry that if anything we do to lessen the requirements changes the focus of the military and distracts it from its mission - which is to fight and win the nation’s wars … we need the best people our country can produce to fight and win the nation’s wars. That is what matters.”